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March miracle?

Feb 6, 2018 at 6:00am

By Paul Rogers, Mercury News

Hoping for a March Miracle to bail out California’s dry winter? It’s not likely.

A review of more than 100 years of rainfall records of major cities in California — including San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Rosa, Redding and Fresno — shows that none have ever finished the rainy season with normal rainfall totals after ending January with the amount of rain they’ve had so far this winter.

In San Francisco, where rainfall records date back to 1849, the odds are only a little better. Just twice has the city’s rainfall total recovered to its normal level of 23.65 inches by June 30 after being where it is now, at 8.53 inches, from July 1 through Jan. 31.

In Eureka, it’s happened three times since 1885. In the rest of the cities, not once, even though their weather records also date back to the late 1800s.

In other words, California winters are like Olympic ski racers. Stumble at the beginning of the race, and its very difficult to catch up by the end.